


leave your lovers like campsites

by garden of succulents (staranise)



Series: better than you found them [1]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Aces PR, Discussions of mental illness, F/M, Las Vegas Aces, Slow Burn, Social Media, bisexuals in a heterosexual relationship, bitterness about women's sports, discussions of dysfunctional families and child abuse, discussions of substance abuse, negative opinions of Sidney Crosby, too much hockey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-25
Updated: 2016-12-25
Packaged: 2018-09-12 00:41:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9048454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/staranise/pseuds/garden%20of%20succulents
Summary: The Aces' new PR intern is a mentally ill hot mess who's far from home and missing her old teammates something fierce.  The only thing that makes her life bearable is: she's not the only one on the team.





	1. Fall 2010

**Author's Note:**

  * For [goldstandard](https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldstandard/gifts).



Andy was already having a bad night so Kent Parson did not, technically, ruin it. When Andrew, the Aces' assistant coach, knocked on her hotel room door, she'd already fielded a phone call from her mother and an email from her father and her mood was pretty thoroughly in the toilet. That didn't mean she was grateful, though.

"The boys are out at a club," Andrew said, leaning on her doorframe. "Jensy texted me saying Parser's looking a little rough and not listening to any of them telling him to pack it in, so one of us should go collect him." He opened his hand, showing a car key dangling from his thumb with a bulky rental tag. "The privilege is yours."

Andy took it, her eyes narrowed. "Is this a hazing thing?"

"Just a seniority thing," he said cheerfully. "That and I already took some Nyquil tonight."

"Okay," Andy muttered, shoving the key in the pocket of the pants she'd shoved on before answering the door. "Where are they?"

*

Fat, frizzy-haired brunettes like Andrea didn't get much experience going to the head of a line of well-dressed, well-groomed people and getting past club bouncers, so she was going to have to bull her way through this. She'd thought rapidly, put on her bra, crumpled blouse and blazer, but left her hair in the mess God and the end of day left it and didn't bother putting any makeup on. She went up to the door of the Denver club in as businesslike a fashion as she could manage, and pulled her Aces badge to the extent of the retractable lanyard clipped to her belt. "I'm with Aces management," she blustered. "I need in to talk to one of my players."

The bouncer, who looked a little gaunt for his job but had a steely ex-military air about him, looked her up and down. "What part of management?"

She doubted that _social media intern_ would impress him much so she deadpanned, "Public Relations," hoping it carried the majesty that NHL rookies always attributed to it, with her untold authority to Make Them Behave for the cameras.

"Sure, okay," he said at last and opened the door, and she started to sidle past him, before ruining her image a bit by backing up and shouting, over the noise of the club inside, "Where are they? Do you know?"

He grimaced slightly and made a hand gesture that seemed to say _in, to the right and up,_ and she belatedly whipped her wallet out and shoved a fiver in his hand before disappearing into the club.

She was remembering to expense that too, she thought. The club was enormous inside, packed with drunk and sweaty people, the music almost deafening, and yet still she found the hockey team by following the loudest noise. When she stomped up the stairs and sidled past dancers and hangers-on to a second-storey seating area a waitress tried to stop her as she went around the little velvet rope. Andy just pulled out her lanyard and tried to look like she'd never even dream of being stopped as she ignored the woman.

Parson was by no means the drunkest Ace at the table as they celebrated their win over the Avs, that honour possibly going to Kody who saw her and carolled, "Andy, it's Andy-girl!" but Kent _was_ the youngest most-drunk person, glassy-eyed and screeching with laughter in his chair. Andy sidled around the room to where Jensy was leaning against a wall and watching with concern, and touched his elbow. He looked relieved to see her, then indicated that he would back her up.

A lot of her wanted to come up behind Parson and grab his shoulder with the Hand of God, but she'd had some bad experiences with surprising people from behind; that was great for psychological advantage if it _worked_ , but she didn't know if he was going to be one of those twitchy bastards. So she squeezed in beside a pair of beautiful girls who were getting autographs from Weiss, in Parson's line of sight, and more or less genuflected so she didn't have to put her knee on the sticky floor but her head was down on his level without shoving her tits in his face. "I'm taking you out of here before you get photographed," she said loudly, putting her hand on his arm.

He looked at her thickly. She knew not to confuse a drunk with too many words, so she just nodded encouragingly and stood up, gesturing for her to come with. She was awfully afraid he'd argue with her, the way he'd done with his teammates, but somehow her authority or her words or the threat of photographers worked. Like a magic spell he unfolded, obedient, standing up and pushing back his chair. Jensy steadied him when he got up, and when she turned to leave, he steered Parson after her.

"Sorry guys," Parson slurred, stumbling past the table. "Looks like I'm goin' home with Andy."

Andy tried not to grind her teeth at the way that sounded, like she was the worst of all possible choices. Fortunately, none of the Aces were trying to argue with her for ruining their fun. It occurred to her, as she counted five underaged heads before she reached the outer door, that it might be a good idea to send a chaperone with the team on these outings if the team's Captain was most in need of extracting from these situations; but then she considered the possibility that this designated chaperone might be _her,_ and had trouble thinking of a job any closer to her personal definition of Hell.

Jensy and Kent trailed her to the 15-minute loading zone where the Aces' rental car was parked. Andy didn't remember which of the sedans was hers, so she used the fob to unlock the doors and went to the car whose lights flashed. She held the door open as Jensy loaded Kent into the passenger side; the Aces' Captain was having a bit of trouble getting all his uncoordinated limbs into the seat, since the trashcan from Andy's hotel room was sitting in the footwell. "That's in case you throw up," Andy told him, since he was holding it with an air of innocent wonder. "Do up your seatbelt." Then she shut the door on him.

Jensy was standing nearby, looking as attentive and lovable as any of the Aces had managed in the time she'd been with them. "Want me to come?" he asked.

Andy considered it, swiping a hand over her tired face, but she circled her hand generally and said, "Could you go back in there and check around if there's anyone else? Stick 'em in a cab, or text me if I need to come get 'em?"

"Sure thing," he promised, and she smiled at him–an honest, genuine smile–and waved as he turned away.

"Oh hey," she called belatedly, and he turned back. "What room do I put him in?"

"504," he called. "His key's in the breast pocket of his suit."

She held a thumbs-up aloft, shouted, "Thanks," and got into the car.

Parson had put the trash can down between his feet and was listlessly staring at the dark radio displays when she got into the car, his snapback in his hands. He had buckled up his seatbelt. "You're nineteen," Andy said, buckling up her own and starting the car. "In Colorado the drinking age for beer is eighteen, but for wine and spirits it's twenty one, okay? No cocktails, no mixed drinks, not in public."

"Okay," he agreed, flexing the brim of his hat. His voice was despondent and small. "Are you mad at me?"

Oh, she was tempted to let him have it, just let rip on him. And she might have if she hadn't looked over and noticed how much _younger_ than her he was. Andy inhaled deeply as she got her phone to provide driving instructions back the hotel. "I'd prefer if you didn't drink in public," she said, as evenly as she could manage. "But I'm not really pissed at you. It's more that my parents are alcoholics, so I really hate being around drunk people."

"Oh," he said. "I'm sorry."

She put the car in gear and got it out of the loading zone, and was on the road before Parson said, "If somebody doesn't return your calls for ten months, would you call that a breakup?"

Upon due consideration, Andy said, "Yes. People who are in a relationship don't ignore each other for most of a year."

"Then I guess my boyfriend broke up with me," Kent said. Then he giggled, or more accurately, emitted a watery drunk chirrup of noise that was meant to be humorous and self-deprecating. "Sorry. PR nightmare, I know."

The bar wasn't actually very far from the hotel they were staying at; Andy was meant to turn left at the next intersection, and would be able to see it from there. She didn't think very hard before going straight instead.

"You know," she said finally, "I played Division I hockey in college in Minnesota." Well, before she was sent down to Division III, but they didn't need to get into that. "There were six gay girls on my team. Four of them were dating each other. There have been gay women in the CWHL for years. We sent gay Olympians to Vancouver." She gripped the steering wheel so hard her knuckles went white, trying to keep her voice from shaking. "It wouldn't be a PR disaster if _your league_ didn't earn all its money pandering to... to emotionally-stunted homophobes who... got off on reliving their manhood through you."

Which wasn't at all what she wanted to say, but the words she _wanted_ to say eluded her. She shouldn't take her feelings about this job out on a kid who'd just trusted her. Instead all that slipped out was her anger.

"Dating each other... together, or separately?" he asked.

" _Focus,_ Parson," she said.

"Sorry," he muttered.

Having effectively killed the conversation, she used the next red light to map a route back to the hotel.

"Were you... one of the gay girls?" he asked.

She looked over at him. "What makes you ask?"

He shrugged, looking out the window. "Just wondered if you were... like me."

She relented a bit. "Yeah," she said carefully. "I'm into women. But I guess you could say I'm equally as screwed up about guys and girls."

He sighed gustily. "I am _way_ more screwed up about guys," he said. "I'm just bisexual."

"Fair," Andy conceded. Instead of taking the elaborate system of right-hand turns the map laid out for her, she cut through a gas station on the corner and re-entered traffic from another direction. "For the record," she said as she drove, "if somebody hasn't spoken to you in ten months, I think _you_ should break up with _them._ Because you deserve better than that."

"I dunno," Parson said, staring out the window. "All relationships take work, right?"

Andy struggled for a response to that as she turned in to their hotel's parking lot. She second-guessed the first spot she found, since it was under a broad tree dropping autumn leaves and the rental car was really nice, and circled to find a clearer place.

It was possible Parson was actually so far drunk he was into blackout, and nothing she said would stick in his head. He didn't _look_ incredibly drunk so far as most people went, but it was possible he had Andy's dad's trick of having a BAC twice the legal limit and looking almost sober. But... what the hell, why not try.

"Look," she said when she parked, pulled her wallet out of her purse and scrabbled in the billfold for the right business card. Then she scrabbled in her purse for the pen. "I think you should talk about this with somebody. Get some help. Get some support. Now I–" she scribbled out the time and date on the back of the card, then turned it over and held it out to Kent, "can recommend Jill a lot. I see her myself. She's really good. But just... see _somebody._ "

"L-C-S-W," he read in the dim sulfur parking lot light.

"She's a therapist," Andy said.

"Oh." Parson considered the card for a minute. He didn't sound angry or off-put. "Huh."

"Okay," Andy said, unbuckling her seatbelt. "Let's go inside and go to sleep."

"Andy?" Kent Parson said, drunkenly extracting himself from the car. "You're the best."

*

Andy hated having meltdowns at work.

Since starting the Lexapro she didn't burst into tears over molehills anymore, like forgetting a grocery coupon in her car or being told she'd need to go to a different bank branch for a specific transaction. That was a definite relief. So she wasn't crying. But she _wanted_ to cry, and felt the dry ache behind her eyes that meant her inability was chemical, not due to lack of emotion.

"But why _won't_ my phone work?" she asked plaintively.

The line crackled through the handset she pressed between shoulder and her ear. "It, uh, appears that the cellular device is no longer operational," said the customer service representative. "It has been deactivated."

"Okay," Andy said, pressing her fingertips to her forehead. "Do you know _why_ it was deactivated? Is there a charge on the account, or...?"

"No, miss, the account is not in arrears." _Oh, thank god,_ she thought. "It appears the device was disconnected at customer request."

"Okay well, _I_ didn't request the disconnection, so can you _re-_ connect it?"

"Yes, miss, one moment." There was some typing. "Yes. We can do that for a re-connection charge of one hundred and ninety-two dollars."

For a minute Andy was entirely silent. Then she croaked, "You _what?_ "

"We can reconnect your device," he said helpfully, "for a one-hundred and ninety-two dollar reconnection fee."

Oh, _god._ Andy cupped her palm over her eyes. "Can I make up my mind about that and call you back?"

"Yes, certainly. We are here for you twenty-four hours."

"Okay," Andy said. "Thank you." Shakily, she hung up.

Now, she knew, she had to contact her mother. Since they shared a phone plan, that was the logical next step. Andy bit her lip. With her phone currently dead to the world, she couldn't text. Andy looked at her workspace, personal Nokia and Aces Blackberry 10 and landline and computer, debated the dubious merits of calling, and pulled up her email instead.

 _Mom,_ she wrote, _My cellphone stopped working today. When I called the phone company they said it was disconnected last night. Do you have any idea what's up with that? I didn't make any changes on the account._

Fifteen minutes later, her mother called the landline.

"You weren't answering your phone," she accused.

"No, Mom," Andrea said gently. "My phone isn't working today."

"Why isn't your phone working?" she demanded.

"Did you get my email? It wouldn't connect to the network when I woke up this morning."

"Well, _I_ didn't make any changes to the account. Are you sure you plugged it in last night? You've got to plug things in, you can't be careless and let it run out of battery."

"Mom, that's not–that's not the problem I'm having. The phone will turn on, it just won't–"

"I don't know why you need that phone anyway. It's a bad habit, always texting people instead of actually visiting them. Why do you need such an expensive phone, and then cry to us that you're broke? If you just managed your money better, Andrea–"

Andy eased her mother off the line within five minutes and went for a fresh cup of coffee, liberally dousing it with Irish Cream dairy creamer. Phil, her office partner, came by for his own cup and seemed to notice her general demeanour, because he reached out and gave her shoulder a quick, reassuring squeeze. She smiled down at her coffeespoon.

Her phone was ringing when she got back.

"Andrea Scarlatti, Public Relations," she chirped.

"Andrea? It's your mother. You know, I thought of something..."

Kent Parson walked in a couple minutes later to find her resting her face in her forearms on her desk, keyboard carefully moved out of the way first. "Hey," he said. "What's up?"

"My parents bought me an iPhone," she said, muffled by her arms.

He looked down at her in dubious concern. "Congrat... ulations?"

She moaned slightly, and lifted her head to look at him. "They bought it for me for Christmas, but because they got it on the phone company plan it got activated yesterday. So _my_ phone stopped working. So now it's like the League of Nations trying to decide if they should take the phone _back,_ and will it be sold out if they actually try to get it _on_ Christmas, and should they send me my present early, and do I really want it and am I properly _grateful,_ and where should they even ship it _to,_ and–" She sighed, dropping her face into her hands. "This is what happens when they're trying to be _nice_ to me."

After a helpless moment, Kent stepped over to Phil's desk and stole the blown glass bowl of wrapped hard candies he kept there. Wordlessly, he offered it to Andy, who smiled weakly and took a strawberry one. "Have you... had lunch?" he offered.

"Not yet," she answered.

"C'mon to the cafeteria," he urged. "Before it fills out."

She glanced over at Phil, who made a shooing gesture at her. "Let me just get my lunch outta the fridge."

On the way down they talked shop. She'd hooked his Twitter account up to analytic software, so now he was seeing a lot more about where his traffic was coming from, and when; he'd brought a printed list of his personal favourite referring search terms to show the guys.

"Las Vegas good undertaker," she read as they rounded the corner to the team cafeteria. "I think I've read that article."

"It'd make a good display name," he said, grinning, as he took a tray. "That or 'pouty hockey boy'."

"You sure they didn't mean Seguin?" she deadpanned, leaning against a pillar. Kent's face lit with mock-outrage and frustration as he leaned over the lunch line railing and mimed swatting her with his tray. She tucked her lunch under one arm and waved cheekily at him, then went to get a seat.

"So," he said, when they were both seated, "Got any plans for tonight?"

"Unno." Andy swallowed her mouthful of wrap. "When my parents are like this I always just listen to My Chemical Romance and paint my toenails black."

Kent made a choking noise, his fist flying up to his mouth to prevent anything from exiting it. When she looked up, his eyes were crinkled in a smile. "I... have definitely never done anything like that," he said solemnly.

"I'm sure you haven't." She grinned at him, confident that he'd done _exactly_ that before.

"I, uh," Kent said, looking down as he drew a line in ketchup with a fry. "Was wondering if maybe you wanted to go out. On like, a date."

Muscle memory took over; Andy's head whipped around to give her a full survey of the lounge, first one direction, then the other. It was still mostly empty; the people at the other tables, some players, some staff, were talking to each other, though one of them made indifferent eye contact with her when she looked. The doorways were empty. Kent, when she looked back, didn't seem to have a camera on him; his hands were on his tray, his phone out of sight. His expression hadn't cracked yet.

"Is this a joke?" she demanded, her voice quivering a little.

The Aces did like pranks. The month before, they'd covered the floor of her workspace with endless cups half-full of water in honour of her twenty-third birthday, and she'd tried to laugh and cope with it privately. It was an occupational hazard, a kind of humour she tried not to let get to her.

Kent frowned. "What? No. I was seriously asking."

Oh god, he was... seriously asking, and now looking at her with a _seriously_ weirded out expression. She'd blown it again. Andy swallowed bile.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

"Did you know," she babbled, before she could stop herself, because the only other option was flight, and that usually ended badly, "guys used to do that to me in high school? Ask me out, I mean. They'd say, 'Hey, wanna go out with me?' and I'd say, you know, 'Sure' or 'Okay'', and they'd say, 'Oh, too bad, 'cause I don't wanna go out with you.'" Her ears were ringing and she sounded far-away in them, but she still invested her voice with lightness and breeze. "Got to be kind of a running gag."

The joke fell flat on Kent, who was just staring at her. "Why would they do that?"

Andy shrugged. "I was fat. Everyone thought I was a dyke. I played too much hockey."

"Played _too much–_ " Kent sputtered. "You mean they were probably jealous!"

She raised her shoulders. "Who knows? Some of them played pretty good hockey themselves."

His eyes glinted. "Do you know where they're playing now?"

"You know," she said, reaching for her milk. Her hands were shaking a little. It felt like she'd just finished a run. "I've gone out of my way _not_ to know that kind of thing."

"Look, I am _so sorry_ ," he said. "I didn't know it would bring... all of that back."

"Yeah, well." Andy put her milk down. "It's just left me a bit... sensitive on the topic."

"So," he said after an awkward pause, "what do you think about–"

Then somebody, mercifully, called his name. The rest of the team was coming in for their lunch, and he had to be Captain. It gave Andy the break she needed to shove her food back into its sack and escape.

Fifteen minutes later she went back to her desk, breathed deeply, and opened the code editor for the team's website.

"Hey," Phil said. "Are you okay?"

"Fine," she said. She was back in control of her voice. "I mean, Parson probably thinks I'm a gibbering idiot, but you know, it's _fine._ "

"Huh," he said, but the phone rang and he didn't push it. After a minute she put on her headphones and listened to music. For a little bit something took him away and she had the office blessedly to herself.

Her boss came in.

Megan stole a candy from Phil's bowl, leaned against the wall as she unwrapped it. Andy took off her headphones. "Hey, Andrea," Megan said. "How's it going?"

"It's great." Andy smiled at her. "Quiet day today."

"Yeah?" Megan popped the candy in her mouth. "You look like you're not having a great day."

"Oh, well, that's, you know. It's fine."

Megan studied her, studied her bright perky professional face, and said, "If it really is a quiet day, if in your judgment your work is done and nothing would be impeded by your absence, it's okay with me if you take the afternoon off as a personal wellness leave."

"I'm fine," Andy insisted. Megan raised a dubious eyebrow, but retreated back into her office.

In the emptiness she left in her wake, Andy surreptitiously opened her personal Twitter and wrote, _That awkward moment when you're such a mess at work your boss offers to give you the afternoon off._ Then she vented a short breath and went back to work.

 _So did you go home?_   Carrie, an old college teammate messaged her through Google Talk fifteen minutes later.

 _Mama didn't raise a quitter,_ she replied. _If I went home for being a mess I'd never work._

 **Go Hawks Go** @carrieliney87  · 21m  
.@scarlattina14 ANDY GO HOME #andygohome

 **Melanie Nilson** @puckingonice · 19m  
@scarlattina14 You're a Millennial, they can't possibly expect you to work without a cell phone #andygohome

 **N H Hell** @scarlattina14 · 18m  
@puckingonice My work phone still works

 **Patricia Lee** @PattyLeeCWHL · 5m  
@scarlattina14 If your boss offered it was probably a strong hint that you SHOULD.

 **N H Hell** @scarlattina14 · 4m  
Oh shit... am I gonna get in trouble if I DON'T? #andygohome

 **Minnesota Mild** @luv4myiguana · 1m  
@scarlattina14 Calm down, take the day off, come back stronger tomorrow.

"Megan," Andy said, poking her head around her boss's door. "Actually, is it okay if I do go home? I've got my work wrapped up for the day."

"You're an adult," Megan told her. "I trust you to manage your own workload. Rest up."

So, heart in her mouth and fearing for her livelihood, but longing for home and her cat even more, Andy went home.

 **N H Hell** @scarlattina14 · 0s  
@carrieliney87 @pattyleecwhl @puckingonice @luv4myiguana @duluthwhl @bringmemyhockey I miss you all so much. Wish you were here.

And amazingly, nothing else bad happened for the rest of the week.


	2. Winter 2010-11

The Aces front office awarded Christmas vacation through a carefully-rigged lottery system. The NHL took two days off for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, but holiday games were just too profitable for anything more. A college classmate of Andy's had written a paper on the sickening amount of money the NHL lost by sitting out just those two days, when other sports didn't. Then, to make the short break even worse, the Aces were scheduled to spend Christmas mid-roadie in western Canada, playing the Oilers on December 23 and Flames on December 26. It wasn't feasible or economical to fly everyone home, especially since a lot of people would be boarding planes for places equally distant the moment they touched down in Las Vegas. It made more sense to keep the bulk of people in Alberta between games and fly people with small children and distant families out of Edmonton individually. The people who got to leave were winners of the weighted lottery--Andy was perfectly happy to throw herself on the grenade of not seeing her parents this year, and use her lottery slip to write the name of a trainer with family in northern Quebec. The players used a similar system.

Unfortunately, the next grenade she had to fall on was babysitting the team. _Theoretically_ the Aces were all grown adults; in _reality,_ Megan and their Head Coach had started planning for a two-day break in a place where the drinking age was 18 the way other people planned for nuclear war.

"I wish McIsaac would just send them skiing in the Rockies," Megan said pensively as she briefed Andy for the trip. "Once you're _on_ a ski hill it's hard to get _off._ They're so much harder to contain in the cities, but he's on a tear about injuries. We can mostly try to keep them corralled, but still–Henry and Andrew are your people if anyone gets arrested, they can authorize emergency funds for bail. I'll be on call, and I have everybody's Twitter passwords, so just shoot me a text if you need anything deleted. Try to include the URL. You've got the team Mastercard?"

"Got it," Andy said, checking her pocket.

"Good. And to reporters, you say?"

"We're waiting to release an official statement," Andy recited.

"And if somebody dies you say?"

"Our equipment got stuck in Winnipeg."

"If our equipment really gets stuck in Winnipeg?"

"Then we're fucked and I quit."

Megan grinned at her. "I like your attitude. You're set."

*

The Calgary Zoo was closed to the public on Christmas Day, but it did find room for thirteen Aces, six auxiliary staff, and a TV crew from CTV Calgary. Andy struggled to fit her thickly-lined mittens into the strap on the team camcorder, and clumsily juggled it with her camera phone as the Aces whooped and frolicked, climbing dinosaur statues in the biting cold. She couldn't afford to look too affected by the chill, not when the TV crew had spent so much time filming Hellekson's extreme three-scarf-two-hat look that he was almost definitely going to be on the news tonight. The team was on the lookout for people to tease about the weather, and she had Minnesota pride to hold up.

That said, this kind of tit-freezing cold was the first thing that had ever made her think charitably of Nevada. West Edmonton Mall, although absolutely packed with Christmas Eve shoppers, had been entirely indoors.

"So," Kent said, falling into step with her. "Did you see the part where I fed a tiger?"

Andy rolled her eyes. "I was filming it the entire time."

He eyed her. "Scarlatti, are you jealous?" He swayed closer to her as they walked and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "I'm sorry I got to feed a tiger and you didn't."

"You suck at apologies," she said, but put a hand on his back and fell into step with him anyway.

"Where are we going after this?" he asked.

"Well, hotel, duh." The bus they'd chartered down from Edmonton was still waiting in the parking lot with their luggage onboard. "Then it's a secret."

"Secret even from _me?_ "

"This team has finally given me power, Parsley. You think I'm going to give it up now?"

"Do we at least get lunch first?"

"I'll think about it," she said grandly, as if there weren't a Christmas banquet waiting for them at the hotel. "How about you go round people up so we can go."

*

"Puck bunny sighting!" Helly announced optimistically. Andy made a disgusted noise. The girls who'd wandered past the bowling alley's CLOSED sign to inquire within, and were now being told by the cashier that it was reserved for a private section, wouldn't have been able to see the Aces when they came in, not to mention they looked like they were in junior high.

"We're going out after this, right?" Jensy asked as he watched Andrei pick up his last ball. "It's almost five. Time to make merry, right?"

Andy winced slightly. The number of Aces had been winnowed down to nine when a bunch of them picked up a rental car and drove to Jay's parents' place in Airdrie, but she and Andrew were still tasked with keeping them at a 5:1 babysitting ratio, so she couldn't tap out for the night. Not unless four of them went off in completely separate directions. Following all nine of them to a bar in hockey country on a holiday would be...

 _Worth the overtime,_ she told herself. _Good on my resume._

"Nah," Kent said, and glanced at Andy. "New Tron movie's out. This mall has a movie theater, yeah? I wanna go there."

"It's a reboot," Jensy argued. "It's gonna suck."

"Yeah, but it's not _Christmas_ if you don't see a movie." Kent looked around at all eight of them, from Andrei mourning his gutterball to Zima looking solemnly soused on his eighth beer. "Am I really the only Jew here? That's incredible. _Nobody_ here knows the right way to celebrate Christmas. You eat a shitton of Chinese takeout and go to the movies. It's tradition."

"There's a Jack Black movie," Helly offered.

"Yeah, see?" Kent encouraged smoothly. "We should walk down and see what's on. Jensy, it's your turn, win this fucking one for us."

 _Thank you_ , Andy mouthed at him, and he winked before turning back to the game.

Amazingly, only three Aces headed out to a bar with Andrew. Kent's charisma was just that strong. Zima, Andy frankly suspected, would need to be poured out of the cab and into a hotel on the way there, and she wished Andrew an easy night of it as she and the rest went to the movies.

As they walked through the enormous cathedral to commercialism that was Chinook Centre she asked Kent as an aside, "You know this is gonna cause a flashmob, right? The movie doesn't start for an hour, and it's gonna be packed with kids in there."

He grinned at her and adjusted his hat. "Good PR. How's my hair?"

*

She didn't mean to let Kent into her apartment, but then he emailed her, _Got tickets to a Fallout Boy show nearby. Wanna go? I can make it a group thing._ So she went to the concert, as did Jensy, Helly, and a few other Aces. When Kent offered her an extra ticket for a guest of her own she invited her neighbour Anil, explaining, "It's a way to thank him for all the cat-sitting he does. He likes music. Not into hockey, though I've tried."

"Wait," Kent said. "You have a cat?"

"Yeah," she answered. "I mean, she was a family cat, but Mom said I had to take her with me when I moved out. She's..."

He stopped her by putting a hand on her arm, them grabbed both her shoulders, as though delivering a momentous declaration.

"Andrea," he said, "can I meet your cat?"

So she did her best to clean her apartment up after the game that night. Embarrassingly, she didn't have time to do a very thorough job; there was too much mess. Still, clearing boxes and cans off the living room table and stacking the dishes scattered throughout the apartment into neat piles by the sink was... better than how it had been before.

Kent didn't notice any of it, since he went into raptures over Sydney the moment he opened the door.

"Oh my _god,"_ he said, reaching a hand out to Andy's calico, who received him on the bookshelf next to the front door. "You are a _sweetheart,_ hel _l_ _o_ , how _are_ you? Does she like being picked up?"

"Yeah, she's a suck," Andy said bemusedly, shutting the door after him. "Always was, but I think moreso because I'm away a lot."

"Hi," he crooned, cradling Sydney in his arms and scratching her chin. "Hi hi _hi_ hi _hi._ Hello. You are _very_ pretty. Oh, my god. You _headbutted_ me." He dropped out of singsong long enough to say, "My billet family had cats and I can't believe how much I missed having a cat around," before he was talking to Sydney again. "Yes. _Yes,_ you're gorgeous."

She'd been a little nervous that there was some kind of double entendre about Kent inviting himself over to her apartment to pet her cat, but, well, he was genuinely into petting her cat. Rocking slightly as he walked, the way you would carrying a baby, he guided himself to Andy's couch and settled down, careful and smooth, as Sydney kneaded him with her claws. After he declined Andy's offer of a beverage she brought him a glass of water, then settled into her armchair.

"I swear I can feel my blood pressure dropping," he said, eyes closed as Sydney sniffed his face. "What's her name?"

"Sydney," Andy said, not able to help the stupid grin that was creeping onto her face. He looked so _unguarded._

Except then his eyes opened into slits as he gently rubbed Sydney's ears. "Scarlatti," he said cautiously, "did you name your cat after a hockey player?"

For a minute she didn't understand the question; it took her a minute to come up with a hockey player who shared a name with her cat. Not a jersey name, a _first_ name, and–

"As if I would!" she said, and Sydney startled out of her bliss to stare at Andy wide-eyed. "After _that_ overrated histrionic–after _him?_ An _NHL_ player? Please! And--she is _nine years old,_ thank you!"

"No," Kent murmured, as Sydney bounded out of his arms and onto the floor. "Tell me how you really feel."

Andy smiled ruefully. "I think you've already heard my opinions on the NHL in general."

He leaned down to rub his fingers together at Sydney's eye level, but she ignored him and crouched under the coffee table. "To be honest, that memory's a bit hazy. But I know you've got a friend in the CWHL?"

"Yeah," she said, and picked up her tea. "I mean, I've met more than a few, but I'm only really close friends with... old teammates, you know how it is."

He left Sydney to stew and picked up his own drink. "What position do you play?"

"Defense." She leaned back in her chair to reach behind her and snag one of the cardboard frames from her bookshelves. It was the closest to hand, but not the best example; after she passed it down she put down her tea, and stood to pick up the most appropriate one.

"Oh my god," he said, squinting at the picture he held. "You're all so _tiny._ This was... Bantam? You were what, fourteen here?"

"Yeah," she said, sitting next to him. "That's my dad," she felt obliged to point out, since he was _in_ the picture.

"He coached you?" Kent asked, not taking his eyes off it.

"Yeah. Coaching hockey is... what he does."

"Which one's you?"

She had to squint a bit herself, to tell the three tall brunettes in the back row apart. It was... as pictures go, you couldn't get very damning when all they could see was your face. It was okay.

"How was he as a coach?"

Andy sighed, drumming her fingers on her thigh. "It's awkward, when everyone you know knows your dad as this really great awesome guy, and you know... someone totally different at home."

He looked at her, seriously, and she just slid the other picture over to him.

"Here's my college team," she said, taking the old picture away and tucking it behind her. "We were division champions that year." Kent spotted her easily; the photograph was better, more closely framed, and Andy was actually smiling, leaning on the woman next to her, showing something like personality. "That's Patty," she said, pointing to another woman.

"Okay, who's–?" he said, pointing to the woman Andy was leaning on.

She named the entire team for him, even found herself telling stories, and Sydney slunk out from under the coffee table and up onto Kent's lap. He avoided her belly like the trap it was when she rolled over for him, and kept scratching her chin and chest.

"That's what I hate most about Nevada," Andy said. "No hockey. No _teams._ It's the first year I haven't played since I was four."

He dangled his hand out of Sydney's reach as she kept snatching at it. "There's a rec league, isn't there?"

She felt a cat toy between the couch cushions and pulled it out, then taunted Sydney with her feather wand. "Sorta. Not very serious, though. I mean, not that I _could_ play if there _was_ a team for me, I'm pretty busy with the job."

After a minute of looking at the cat he said, "You really don't like it here, do you?"

"It's a job. It's a job in hockey. That's more than most of the people I played or went to school could hope for right now."

He pressed a hand to her arm, and she pressed her lips together.

Somebody who wasn't Andy Scarlatti would have been able to do something about having Kent Parson on her living room couch, his shoulder pressed against hers, and it probably would have been easy. It only would have taken the absence of the invisible porcupine quills she wore all the time now, living in a place she disliked and working with players she resented fiercely, far from the love of her friends and teammates and thoroughly surrounded by men.

Andy Scarlatti gave Kent Parson a laser pointer for her cat, then put a frozen pizza in the oven for lunch and waved him out the door when he went to work out.

"Still," she said to Sydney, who jumped onto the kitchen counter, "he did like _you._ "

*

The Aces didn't play on February 14, so Megan and Andy hadn't planned any major publicity for the day. It just kind of... happened.

"Brandi just retweeted you," Megan said when Andy came back from coffee.

"Oh man, really?" Andy sat down and refreshed her feed. Something she'd written had only made it onto the NHL's official Twitter four times so far, and it was always an ego boost.

The NHL retweeted  
**The Las Vegas Aces** @LVAcesNHL  
Thanks @Buzzfeed! Three Aces made the Most Eligible Bachelors list–but we know what this REALLY says about them. @kvp90 @liamngNHL @zimahockey  http://bzfd.it/2hw7uJh 

Megan stayed leaning against the wall, browsing on her phone. "That was great. You should do more like that."

Andy narrowed her eyes. "You mean that? You normally tell me to rein it back in."

"Well," Megan said judiciously, "Your approach has the numbers to back it."

"Will you... be free in fifteen minutes?" Andy asked. "Half an hour. I wanna draft something."

*

Conveniently, none of the boys had left the locker room yet after practice. "Okay!" Andy yelled, stepping into a miasma of sweat and jock straps. "Who here's single?"

"Leaving it to the last minute, Scarlatti!" Jensy yelled back at her.

Zima smirked. "You are... not my type."

"Yeah Zima, I know that, you're not subtle, I don't like you either," she said loudly into the quieting melee. "I'm trying a PR thing. If you want Twitter to know you're single, put up your hand. Jesus, Scotty, _that is the hand with your wedding ring,_ you're not even trying. Okay." Slowly rotating in the middle of the room, she scribbled down seven names. "All right, thanks gentlemen. I'm out."

As she left the room she heard someone say, "Do you think she noticed I was naked?" and smiled to herself in triumph.

*

That night she drank wine in her apartment and watched her work go viral.

 **The Las Vegas Aces** @LVAcesNHL · 8h  
In honor of  <3 day, we're featuring each of our singletons. #AcesLove

 **The Las Vegas Aces** @LVAcesNHL · 8h  
Liam Ng has better hair than every woman he's ever dated. Are YOU woman enough to stand next to this??  http://pics.twitter.com/synVPq  #AcesLove

 **The Las Vegas Aces** @LVAcesNHL · 8h  
Corey Bookerman loves long walks on the beach, ATVing, and tripping over his own stick  http://pics.twitter.com/ezw7y5 #AcesLove

 **The Las Vegas Aces** @LVAcesNHL · 8h  
Miroslav Zima is 5'11" and earns more than a million dollars annually. That's gotta be good enough for somebody, right? #AcesLove

 **Go Hawks Go** @carrieliney87  · 2h  
Jesus A, what'd Z ever do to you?

 **I get paid for this** @scarlattina14  · 2h  
@carrieliney87 He calls me "Fat Andy" when he thinks I can't hear him and he's a shitty defenseman

 **The Las Vegas Aces** @LVAcesNHL · 7h  
Mike Romaniuk is REALLY excited about his Costco Executive Membership and hopes you are too.  http://pics.twitter.com/l5yc3 #AcesLove

 **ColumbusBlueJackets** @BlueJacketsNHL · 3h  
@LVAcesNHL That's not a sexy pose, THIS is a sexy pose  http://pics.twitter.com/zmqbfL #BlueJacketsLove

 **The Las Vegas Aces** @LVAcesNHL · 7h  
Henrik Jensen needs someone to cook for him. Please. We're begging. He's 6'2, 230lbs  & gets $2.3mil/yr. http://pics.twitter.com/VPyrQ5 #AcesLove

 **ur candygram** @acesgurrrl_ · 1h  
@LVAcesNHL ...is that peanut butter

 **The Las Vegas Aces** @LVAcesNHL · 37m  
@acesgurrrl_ And he's eating it with a spoon, yes.

 **The Las Vegas Aces** @LVAcesNHL · 7h  
This man isn't drowning, he's Jesse Bouchard trying to swim. At least he's 6'4" and cute?  http://pics.twitter.com/T3wLum #AcesLove

 **The Las Vegas Aces** @LVAcesNHL · 6h  
Kent Parson looks at adoptable cats online for hours, then says actually getting one is "too much commitment". #AcesLove

 **ain't no hollaback girl** @kvp90 · 6h  
@LVAcesNHL BUT WHAT IF IT GETS LONELY WHEN I'M AWAY

 **The Las Vegas Aces** @LVAcesNHL · 5h  
@kvp90 Oh, buddy.

 **ain't no hollaback girl** @kvp90 · 21m  
Got a date for tonight after all!  http://instagr.am/p/xigkRA #vday #aceslove #catsofinstagram

 **Melanie Nilson** @puckingonice 19m  
ANDY

 **Melanie Nilson** @puckingonice · 19m  
ANDY WHAT IS KP DOING WITH UR CAT

 **Go Hawks Go** @carrieliney87  · 17m  
@puckingonice @scarlattina14 EXPLAIN!!

 **Melanie Nilson** @puckingonice · 14m  
ANDYYYYYYYYYYY

 **Minnesota Mild** @luv4myiguana · 9m  
@scarlattina14 ANDY ANSWER YOUR PHONE

 **Go Hawks Go** @carrieliney87  · 8m  
USE PROTECTION GIRL

 **Minnesota Mild** @luv4myiguana · 7m  
@scarlattina14 DEETS

 **i get paid for this** @scarlattina14 · 1m  
Jesus guys, I was paying the pizza guy

 **i get paid for this** @scarlattina14 · 47s  
And chill out, he took that picture last week

 **i get paid for this** @scarlattina14 · 32s  
AFAIK KP is home sad &alone like the rest of us

 **Melanie Nilson** @puckingonice · 11s  
@scarlattina14  & ur just going to LET HIM?

 **i get paid for this** @scarlattina14 · 0s  
@puckingonice I told you, I just got pizza. I'm not leaving my pizza.


	3. Spring 2011

"Okay, so, Kent," Andy said, and found she was wringing her hands. She reached out to scratch Sydney's head. "I had an interview when we were in St. Paul last week. A job interview. For next year. And I've kinda been... offered it."

Kent didn't explode. He didn't even offer an opinion. He held on to his water glass and asked, "What kind of job?"

"With the state girls' hockey association. It's the... I grew up playing for them. It's like, um. Administration, and organizing tournaments and clinics, and like, public outreach? Trying to enrich girls' hockey experiences, let them know about their opportunities after high school, talking a little bit about my own experience as a player. That kind of stuff? My friend Carrie works in the office, she runs a mentorship program between the women's teams and girls."

"That sounds amazing," he said. "You're gonna take it, right?"

Andy opened her mouth, and closed it. She'd been absolutely certain that people leaving him was one of Kent Parson's guaranteed berserk buttons. Management just took it in stride that he was going to flip his shit when they traded someone and made their announcements after he was done for the day; he went from fast friends to frosty strangers with two of the Aces who'd signed free agent contracts with other teams. So this was... puzzling. "Do you think I should?"

Kent shrugged. "You hate it here. You hate the desert. You ha- you don't like the NHL. You don't get paid that great. You don't get to play hockey. You're not near any of your friends. None of the produce is local. You can never make it to the farmers' market. Your cat misses you. Our schedule sucks." He smiled wryly at her dropped jaw as he recounted her grievances, small and large, against life with the Aces. "I'm... kind of resigned to the fact that you're not gonna stick around."

"I'm here for the rest of the season," she said desperately. "As long as you're playing this year, I'll be with you."

"Yeah," he said, with the soft, kind air of somebody who didn't want to say that wasn't enough.

She reached over and squeezed his hand.

*

At the beginning of March Megan invited Andy into her office, where Phil was already seated, and said, "Phil's leaving us a week from now."

Andy's eyes bugged out of her head as she groped for a seat. "Um," she squeaked. " _Excuse_ me?"

Not that anyone in the office liked to say so and jinx them, but the Aces were closing in on a literal, mathematical, legitimate spot in the Stanley Cup playoffs. A month from now, other teams in the league would be cleaning out their lockers for the summer and the Aces would--knock wood--be a well-oiled machine winging its way to victory.

You did _not_ abandon a hockey team a month before playoffs.

"We're not going to discuss how or why," Megan said smoothly. Andy couldn't stop goggling. "It's a fact, and we're going to deal with it. At this point in the season, there are some of Phil's responsibilities I'll be taking over myself, but Andy, we'd like you to step up into his role."

"You," Andy gulped. "You know I'm leaving in the summer, yeah?"

Megan bulldozed over her.  "Of course. So. Phil's agreed to stay on for a week to ease the transition and train you in some of your new duties. We're pulling in your replacement for social media from the Desert Kings while you take over as Media Liaison. All right?"

"Uh," Andy said, and came to realize that was a question. "Yes?"

"Let's grab some coffee," Megan said kindly, "and then we'll go over your job description."

*

"Oh, god," Andy moaned, flopping back on the couch. "I have to buy makeup, and I have to get shit _waxed_ , and I just--oh _god._ I make jokes on Twitter. That's what I'm good for. They've mistaken me for a real grownup."

Kent lifted his hand from Sydney to pat her shin. "I'm sorry," he said.

She pointed her finger at him. _"You_ are going to be _sorry_ if you pull any more media bullshit on my watch. This... fucking around with reporters and blowing off interviews and goofing off during press conferences."

"That was last year," he protested. "That was when we had Gerrold as press liaison. I haven't done any of that shit with Phil there."

"No, just when he's on vacation. I watched that presser in Edmonton."

"Heh. Yeah." He smiled, brief and furtive, like a schoolboy. "Yeah, that was... yeah."

She prodded his thigh with her foot. "So you're _not_ gonna do it on me."

"Well, like," he said. "There's stuff like, when I do this," he reached up and rubbed his earlobe, "I'm really not liking how an interview is going, so Phil comes in and pulls him off me. Or, like," he flashed his hands in the ASL signs for _5, 10, 15,_ "After a loss, I let him know how long I think I can manage talking to people before I blow up."

"Huh," Andy said, trying to shove all that in her brain. Kent went back to petting her cat.

"I'll try, Andy, okay?" he said. "I don't wanna make your job any harder. I just..."

"We gotta work together," she finished.

He looked startled for a second, and then smiled at her.

"Yeah," he said. "We'll work together."

*

 **Patricia Lee** @PattyLeeCWHL · 10m  
Check out my old teammate Andrea interviewing Aces defenseman Henrik Jensen on being in the Stanley Cup playoffs!  http://nhl.com/aces/vide...

 **Go Aces Go** @carrieliney87  · 8m  
@scarlattina14 Have I mentioned lately that I love your eyebrows?

*

In later years, a conspiracy theory developed that Kit Purrson was the creation of Aces PR; they'd planted her in the building and planned for the subsequent hype.

Andy's only statement on the topic was that in her wildest _dreams_ , she had the brilliance to plant a kitten in the home team entrance to the ice before practice on the first game of playoffs, right where Kent would startle it out of hiding. She could fantasize about being that smart; it was on the outer edges of plausible. If she'd been that bright, she might have imagined it would create a media sensation; knowing Kent as well as she did, she might even have made a shrewd guess that he'd track the kitten down and adopt it, and turn it into a social media sensation. She could have planned the whole thing out.

The simple truth was that Kit Purrson was a godsend, and Megan, Andy, and Andy's new underlings were too busy working their guts out to have anything to do with her. The Strip was a haven for feral cat colonies, and it wasn't actually the first time a stray had wandered into the arena looking for food.

"God, even the _Las Vegas Star_ wants to do a story on her," Megan said, going through her email at lunch. "You know, they've hardly written a damn thing about us all year. Their press pass is collecting dust. They just pipe in syndicated coverage from a national outlet."

"Want me to handle it?" Andy said around a mouthful of salad.

"Sure," Megan said, and tapped the phone to forward the request.

*

"Andy," Jensy carolled from her doorway, after dinner the night before Game Seven of their first series. "Andy, Andy, Andy, can I see your nails again?"

She didn't think he was actually drunk, as she came to the door. He didn't smell like alcohol; he emitted waves of sweat and Febreze. What it looked like, to her, was some deep form of Playoff madness; a punch-drunk, fey _silliness_ that made you order pizza at 3am and laugh so hard Skittles poured out of your mouth as fast as you could pour them in. It was... something she remembered experiencing herself. She held her hands up so he could admire her manicure. Having her door open, being available to the boys, was part of what made her a trusted ally and not an outside authority--and she needed that, since more than once she'd walked into a room of rookies and heard someone hiss, _Shit, quit it, it's Andy._

"I _love_ that," he said. "Andy, could you do my nails like that?"

"I special-ordered the decals off the Internet," she said, laughing. "I used my last ones up today."

He pouted hugely at her. "Can I still get them in Aces colours?"

"I'll go get my polish," she said with a smile.

"Okay." And then he danced into the hallway before swinging his head back into her room. "Bring 'em down to 312. A bunch of us want 'em."

Two laptops in 312 were being used to review tape, while the main TV was softly playing the 2001 _Josie and the Pussycats_. The room contained eight men in states of undress ranging from Helly having a bath in the tub with a cloth across his eyes to Jay and Scotty in crumpled slacks, shirts and ties comparing defense plays at the table. Jensy compromised with a t-shirt and sweats; Kent was wearing a tank top and boxers. Liam was getting an astonishingly competent-looking back massage from Wordy.

"Okay, who wants nail polish?" Andy asked, and threw a bottle of hand sanitizer at the nearest hand raised. "Use that on the part you want painted. This is good shit, and I don't want it infected with foot fungus."

"Do we have to file our nails first?" Kent asked.

"Excellent question, Parser. Everybody sanitize, and I'll pass around the manicure kit."

She was vindicated in the hand sanitizer; Kent aside, the players tended to prefer pedicures to manicures. When they crushed San Jose 5-1 the next day, Andy found herself expensing bottles of OPI for Series 2 and teaching hockey players how to do French manicures. Every man who'd scored in Game 7 was in Kent's room the night before, and a new superstition was born. (Correlation, causation, who cared; this was hockey.)

There were definite perks too, like joining Wordy's massage clientele and team sing-a-longs to musicals, but being piled in with the guys also made the whole experience a lot more raw. She was with the guys in Helly's rooms when he came back from the doctors and said he couldn't go back in the ice; three days later the guys came looking for her after dinner when she'd have stayed in following a bad fight with her mom, and they brought her tissues and water and M&Ms from the vending machine.

It made it a lot more painful to leave them when playoffs were over.

*

"I don't actually know much about hockey," Samuel Park from the _Las Vegas Star_ said sheepishly as he carried his camera down the tunnel. "They brought me on to cover basketball, right? And then circulation's down and they make cuts and whoops, I'm the only guy left on the sports desk. Is that the locker room?"

"Yes," Andy folded her hands like a well-comported spokeswoman. "So the team would have changed here for practice, and then come out into the tunnel to the ice."

"Okay," he said, and carefully set up a few pictures. He seemed to have to think a lot about the angles he chose. "So then what?"

Andy continued the tour she'd already given three times before. "There was a bag of camera equipment left lying by the tunnel entrance, where the cat had taken refuge. So when the players came out of the dressing room it startled her, and she jumped out of the bag and away from the people, onto the ice."

"Can we actually... go out onto the ice?" he asked, both hopeful and dubious.

"Yes, of course. Here, take my arm." Despite her heels, her knowledge and confidence gave her a far steadier stance on the rink surface than him. They minced out onto the ice together, and then she carefully turned him around so he could ease onto one knee and take pictures of the tunnel entrance from the rink. There were some good contrasts of light and shadow there, she guessed.

"Never been on ice before," he said with a wry smile when she helped him up. "How did you learn?"

"I grew up in Minnesota," she told him. "I've played eighteen seasons of ice hockey."

"Oh, I see." He ducked his head. "I just... it's funny. I don't know why Las Vegas _has_ a hockey team. Where do they even find the players out here?"

"You really don't know?" Andy shot a glance sideways at him as they stepped back into the tunnel.

"Uh..." He shook his head, a little embarrassed. "I guess they're not local. It's just been a busy season in basketball, and it's NBA playoffs, which gets a lot of attention, and..."

"Most of the players come from the northern states, Canada, or Europe," Andy said, but the practiced patter didn't sound right. He seemed like a smart man over his head and embarrassed at being caught in a lacuna of knowledge. "But hockey rarely has hometown heroes, like a lot of professional sports. These players all left their homes by fifteen or sixteen to play on junior teams hundreds, if not thousands, of miles away. That's the way the sport is." She hesitated, and took a chance. "You don't think a Las Vegas audience would care about a team that came here from a long way off to follow their dreams?"

"Ah, well," he mumbled. "My editor is pushing me to cover hockey more."

"Do you... do you understand how momentous getting into these playoffs is?" she asked, then bit her tongue. It was a bad idea to put him on the spot like that. "The NHL is almost a hundred years old. So are some of its best teams. There are thirty-six teams in the league, but three of them hold half the championship wins. They have enormous history, resources, institutional knowledge. The Aces have..." Andy took a minute to rein in her more reckless phrasings, and said, "a bunch of people who wanted a fresh start, some promising kids, and a barn in Henderson. The youngest team of the modern era to win the Stanley Cup had been around eleven years when they did it. We've been here three. The rest of the NHL doesn't expect us to know where our water cooler is yet."

Samuel stared at her, then pulled a notebook out of his pocket. "Sorry," he said. "Can you say that again?"

The next day Samuel emailed Andy a link to his Kit Purrson story, and a list of questions about hockey.

*

 **c'mon boys** @scarlattina14  · 1m  
OKAY WHO ELSE IS GONNA HAVE A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN TODAY

 **c'mon boys** @scarlattina14  · 21s  
I HAVE A SPRITZ BOTTLE AND A BOX OF TISSUES AND I KNOW HOW TO USE 'EM

*

Kent came to a stop on the other side of her desk with his hands in his pockets, his face a little shadowed by his hat brim. "Hey," he said. "Is it okay if... can we... talk?"

Andy looked at him warily, then said, "Sure. Grab a seat."

Kent took Mike's empty chair and rolled it over with his feet, then clasped his hands together, head down. "I already apologized to the guys," he mumbled, sounding a little hoarse, "but you were in the room too, so I... I'm sorry for what I said yesterday. And how I said it. I... really lost it. And said things that weren't true. And you don't... The guys didn't deserve it, and you didn't deserve... to see it."

Andy bit her lip in deliberation, all her years of forgive-and-forget poison fighting with enough therapy to know when to say when something bothered her, "You reminded me of my dad yesterday."

Kent took off his hat, rubbed his face in the palm of his hand. "Jesus," he muttered. "Look, I know I'm not supposed to apologize by calling myself a piece of shit, but..."

Andy rubbed her neck and said, "It's because somebody told you how to apologize, not because you don't think you're a piece of shit, right?"

He smiled painfully. "Yeah."

"Look, Kent..." Her eyes searched the room as she tried to figure out what to say. "You don't apologize by calling yourself a piece of shit because it doesn't _work._ My dad does that. Blow up, self-flagellate, be good for a while, blow up. Lather, rinse, repeat. What he never did was _change._ "

"Yeah." He bowed his head, leaning his elbows on his knees like he was winded. He _was_ breathing hard, but it was long breaths of careful control. "Yeah, I want... I don't wanna do that again. That's not... I don't..." He shook his head. "God, this is hard."

"Wanna apologize to me?" Andy said. "Tell me you're seeing somebody."

He looked up at her, confused. "Seeing...?"

"A therapist," he said.

"Ah." He nodded, and fidgeted with a hole in his jeans. "Scotty... gave me this number to call. They're like. A helpline? I called them last night. It... they really helped."

"Good," Andy said. "That's a start."

*

She came by his apartment that afternoon and finally met his cat. It had been Kent's vet's suggestion to bring camera equipment to the apartment a few days before they intended to use it, so Kit could get used to it; that way she was less likely to hide under the bed the entire time they were trying to film her.

"She had a rough upbringing," Kent said, dunking a teabag into Andy's mug. "Limited social graces, you know."

Andy and Jensy accidentally made eye contact across the kitchen island and Andy bit her lip to keep from laughing. Of _course_ Kent Parson championed the cause of an angry stray who'd bitten him the first time they met.

"You're keeping her after Playoffs are over, or just fostering her?" Jensy asked as he mutilated a stress ball.

Kent looked offended. "Keeping her! Of course."

"I've been saying you should get a cat," Andy put in. "I'm always afraid you're going to kidnap mine."

"Would I really do that?" Kent waggled his eyebrows. "Or would I... kitten-nap her?"

It was too stupid; Andy found herself giggling helplessly as Jensy tried to wrestle Kent into a headlock as punishment. In the middle of the hubbub, a little black ball of fur came out as far as her food dish and ate with wary eyes fixed on the humans in the kitchen.

"Here, look at this," Kent said, gesturing for Jensy to let him out, and retrieved a ribbon wand from his couch. As soon as he waved it past her, Kit went on murderous alert. He could make her race up furniture, across the room, and over the camera in pursuit of it. "Bet she didn't do half-bad hunting for herself when she was a stray, huh?"

"Here, let me try." Andy held her hand out for the wand, which Kent reluctantly acceded. It worked, though; Kit was extremely reluctant to relax around strangers, but if you offered her the chance to play she'd go for anything, and she'd gladly interact with Jensy as an obstacle if she thought she could murder ribbon while she did it.

"We probably won't get happy sleepy kitten," she said to Kent as the three of them slouched down on the couch and ate dinner. "We should work with that. Do a workout video."

"Morning shred with Kit Purrson," Jensy slurred around his food.

Kent nodded. "I like it."

*

Winning the Western Conference Final was an _enormous_ relief. They didn't even have to go to Game Seven to do it, which Andy appreciated because a) it would have been even harder to beat the Red Wings on their own turf, and b) her father lived in Michigan, and would have pissed and moaned enormously if Andy had come back again without introducing him to the team.

"It's okay, I'd be happy to meet your dad," Wordy had said as she painted your toenails before the game.

Kent had bared his teeth. "Yeah, I _wanna_ meet your dad."

"I don't want _you_ to meet _him,_ " Andy had retorted. "It'd make him too happy."

After the game, instead, Kent had briefly lost his composure in the congratulatory arms of Bob and Alicia Zimmermann. That was a relationship Andy didn't pretend to understand, given his complicated history with their son; she just trusted them as old pros to handle Kent in the media gauntlet, and went around to check up on the rest of the team until the reporters cleared out.

Zima hosted the loud party, which they all attended for an hour. "I thought you didn't like drunk people," Kent shouted over the noise when he found her nursing a mixed drink.

She shrugged and shouted back, "It's a little different when I'm the one drinking."

"Anyway," he yelled, "Some of us are going back to my place for board games. Wanna come?"

"How wholesome," she howled back, but squeezed onto Jensy's lap in the back of the taxi anyway when they went.

Apples to Apples wasn't _very_ wholesome, though one of the Desert Kings imports kept bugging Kent to buy Cards Against Humanity, which he claimed was even _worse_. Andy ended up rolling on the floor giggling more than once, but she also ended up clutching all the green cards, too.

"You stole those," Jensy complained from his position on the carpet.

"Maybe," she said, spreading them out on her bosom like a dragon with its hoard. She'd slipped sideways onto Kent during the game, then flat on her back on the couch when he'd gotten up to say goodbye to people at the door. Helly was gone now; he appreciated the invite, being treated like he was still part of the team, and also a quieter party that didn't set off his migraines. Liam and Wordy left with him. The party was burning down to embers and she heard Kent putting bottles and cans in a bin. Kit watched them all suspiciously from the top of the entertainment centre.

"Move," Kent said when he came back, tapping the top of her head, and Andy lifted her shoulders enough for him to take back his seat. He sank his fingers into her curls as she laid her head back down in his thigh; she closed her eyes and hummed with pleasure.

"Andy," Jensy said, "you gotta tell me. I can't get a straight answer out of this guy. Are you two sleeping together?"

"No," Andy said without opening her eyes.

Jensy made a disgusted noise. "Why _not?_ "

"Jens, that's not--" Kent said.

"Good question," Andy said. Kent's stroking fingers faltered. "Because I'm leaving when hockey is over, probably?"

"Losers," Jensy said affectionately. He rolled over and to his feet, which was a little impressive, because he, unlike Andy, had not switched to pop. "I'm goin' home."

Kent's finger traced the shell of Andy's ear and she stifled a squeak. "Don't get mugged," he called, rote warning; Jensy lived in a building a hundred feet away from his. He didn't get up as Jensy showed himself out, but started playing with a piece of her hair. "So, should I put you in a cab home? Set you up in my guest room?"

"I'm comfortable where I am," she said.

Andy's university years had been unhappily dominated by a weird romantic trapezoid that had been the kind of mistake you really have to make before you understand why it was a bad idea. She'd escaped with a few good friends, though it had nearly split her hockey team in half. But for all its flaws, it had taught her some things she hadn't known before. How to open up to gentleness. How to believe somebody was being kind.

She slept with Kent that night, and woke up with Kit on her face in the morning. Both counted as victories.

When he knocked on her hotel room door after dinner their first night in Pittsburgh, she opened it up and let him in.

*

Last-minute before the final game, Andy got stuck with the task of fetching Karen and Katie Parson from their hotel room to the owner's box in the arena before the game. Kent's mother looked like a woman whose early old age had once made her haggard with worry, but the process had been arrested by sudden good fortune; she looked like someone still getting used to prosperity and ease. She also looked a little hunted sometimes, and Andy recognized that expression from her son.

Kent's sister looked like Kent, with long blond hair and a more generous smattering of freckles. She was fifteen and enormously impressed with everything.

"Oh, you're Andrea," Karen said pleasantly. "It's so nice to meet you. I've heard so much about you. Too bad you're going back to Minnesota, I know it'll be hard for Kent to see you leave. I hear the Aces offered you a contract for next year, though?"

 _Oh,_ Andrea thought, hiding discomfort with her smile. _She has me earmarked for her son._ "Thanks," she replied, and then: "But I don't like Nevada and I'm pretty homesick, and I can't stay somewhere that makes me miserable, even if it makes Kent happy."

Karen smiled genuinely, then, but rueful. "You're a smart young woman for knowing that."

*

STANLEY CUP CHAMPIONS retweeted  
**Kent Victory Parson** @kvp90 · 1m  
I almost kind of feel good about myself right now or something

*

And it... was probably petty, or letting something get to her that she should have been over, but:

At the Cup final after-party, an enormous house loaned out to the Aces for the occasion, _everyone_ wanted a piece of the victors. After an evening running ragged as press liaison, Andy kicked the last of the media out of the house, took off her shoes, and curled up on an out-of-the way couch to bask in her Twitter.

That was where the man of the hour found her and said, "Hey Andy Panda, you ready to turn in for the night?"

So she put her shoes back on and laced her fingers with him, walking through the party and saying goodnight to an amazing number of well-dressed, insanely rich, and/or incredibly good-looking people as the acknowledged date of a Stanley Cup champion, and it was her bed he came back to have sex and fall asleep in.

And maybe she should have been a better person, but as guilty as she felt about using Kent as a status symbol, that... healed a lot of very old hurts.

*

Andy's apartment was packed up in boxes when Kent came by three days after the win. He wrapped himself around her on the bed and held onto her for a long time, with Sydney curled up at the back of his head, and Andy smoothed her fingers through his hair over and over.

"I'm going to miss you so much," he said.

Andy kissed his forehead and held his hand and said, "Then pick up the phone and call me."

"Yeah," he said, without much hope.

"And then," she said into his hair, "make new friends. You're good at it. Find new people to sleep with. Work at being happy. See a therapist." She squeezed his hand. "But also. Call me."

"Scotty thinks I should go to AA," he said dully.

"Yeah?" She settled her cheek against his hair. "They're better than nothing."

"Hey, I brought some stuff for you," he said, and struggled up out of the bed. Of the two boxes he brought back to her, he offered the larger one first. "This is from the guys. Zima held a collection for it."

"Oh, no," Andy said, but tore the trademarked NHL wrapping paper off anyway.

Kent couldn't help but explain the joke: "It's roasting pans." She laughed. "The guys are already planning out what they want the Twitter to say about them next year."

She opened her mouth to ask what he wanted, considered that on balance he probably didn't _want_ to be single next year, and said instead, "Thank them for me, okay?"

"Yeah. And they helped with this one, too. I just kind of... started it."

The next box was lighter and about half the size, though bigger than a standard shirt box. Suspicion didn't help Andy much; she wasn't really ready when she opened it up, and she burst into sudden, messy tears.

 _SCARLATTI,_ the Aces jersey said. _14._

"That's... your number, right?" Kent asked anxiously, and Andy nodded reassurance through her crying.

"Seven times two," she said wetly, and hugged him. She'd been inordinately pleased all year when players came and went and "her" number had stayed open. It theoretically belonged to someone they'd had under contract but never got called up, who'd eventually been traded away.

"Thought it would be a little egotistical to give you my jersey, and I wasn't gonna let you wear somebody else's. Are you gonna put it on?"

It was signed, she saw. Different Aces had left their marks on it; signatures, little hearts, a "Thanks Andy". It made her feel like a kid at a tournament again, sitting in a hotel hallway with a Sharpie and girls moving up and down the line to get signed by somebody else. It was also, she knew, very nearly priceless.

Kent helped tug the jersey down when she got it over her head, and gently pulled her hair free of the collar.

"There," he said. "You're ours now."


	4. May 2015

_Busted,_ Andy thought guiltily.

Kent Parson slowly put the box of Girl Scout cookies back down on the receptionist's desk, eyes fixed on Andy, and then looked back at the secretary with a brief, "Sorry, I have to," and a pointing arm. She, cut off in in mid-ramble about feeding her youngest child solids, smiled and waved him away.

"What," he said, stopping short of the couch where she sat, "are _you_ doing here?"

"I have an interview. What's your excuse? Hockey season is over, you know."

He shrugged. "Got bored." Then he turned and dropped himself onto the couch next to her. "What kind of interview? What for? Tell me everything."

Andy elbowed him a little. "Good to see you too."

"Be that way," he said airily. Then he pulled his phone from his pocket and called up the Aces HR website, while she smoothed her skirt down over her knee.

They normally gave each other a heads-up when they'd be in the area, whether she was in Vegas for a wedding or conference or he was in Minnesota for a game or a clinic, even if it was pretty evident that they wouldn't be able to meet up. Somehow she'd _suspected_ that she wouldn't be able to sneak this entire trip without detection, and she was a little surprised that nobody'd tipped him off yet.

"Andrea Scarlatti," he said at last, "are you here to interview as the future Executive Director of the Aces Foundation Sports Outreach Program?"

She wanted something theatric and playful she could say back to him, but nerves swamped her and she just said, "Yes."

The inner door opened.

"Jimmy!" Kent said, leaping to his feet. Andy stood more slowly. "You're interviewing Andy? That's great. You weren't GM when she was here, but I remember her. She's awesome. She's the one who started the Valentine's Day Roast tradition, kept us in line. All the rookies were scared of her. And she's got a ton of experience. The kids she coached made it to Regionals, twice. And she's good with PR--she was a sports correspondent for a TV station for a while there, you shoulda seen her."

"Parson," Andy broke in finally, holding her hand out to him in a _stop_ gesture. "Thank you. Could you please. Chill. And let me handle this."

"Okay," he said, grinning and raising his hands, so she could turn around and shake Jim Murray's hand. When she glanced back, though, he was pointing at her and mouthing something.

"I hear this keeps happening to you," Jim said with amusement.

"Keeps?" Kent demanded.

"I ran into Megan yesterday," Andy explained. It had been... nice, to be remembered warmly for work she didn't remember very warmly herself.

"She didn't tell me!" Kent exclaimed under his breath, and Jim smiled and gestured Andy into his office.

Predictably, Kent ambushed her when her interview was over. "Are you done?" he demanded. "Who else do you have to go see?"

"I'm done," she agreed, passing with him onto the walkway over the practice rink. "My own woman until my flight, which is at 6:15."

Kent checked his phone with dismay. "That's four hours from now!"

"Yeah. Sorry."

"You were really gonna come in and out of here the whole time without telling me?"

"Parse." She cocked her head and spoke softly. "What would it've been like if I told you, and you got your hopes up, and then I didn't get it?"

"Oh." He deflated, arms drooping. "Yeah. Okay. You're right." He was quiet for a minute, but then started talking restlessly. "It's a good program, though. You'll like it. I mean, we don't have a decent women's hockey league, but we actually sponsor a roller derby team, you know that? I think that's so cool. And the _kids_ are into hockey."

He kept talking until they reached the bottom of the stairs, where he jumped with the unthinking force of habit to reach up and hit the lowest part of an enormous mobile, which shuddered slightly and began to move. Andy turned to look up at it; it had been installed since she last worked there. Different kinds of airplanes hung from steel tubes and cables; they had been stationary except for a slight draft that made some of them teeter, and Kent's impetus sending some of them creaking in slow circles.

"The NHL wants us to get away from the gambling imagery so we've been focusing on flying aces," Kent continued. "At the arena we've got plaques honoring different pilots--all the players suggested one from their home country. And at the Air Force base in Nellis, we... oh god I'm stupid. This is the shit it's your job to know, isn't it. It's on our website. You already know all that."

Whoops. Her smile had been just a little too fond. "Yeah, but I like to see you talk about things you're a dork about."

He stuck his tongue out at her, and she followed him out to the front. "I actually found out about this job through roller derby," she told him.

He stopped at the door, though, looking diffident with his hands in his pockets. "My friend has a restaurant south of the Strip," he offered, looking out at the parking lot. "Did you wanna...?"

She touched his arm. "I'd love to. Text it to me."

Kent's friend's restaurant shared an exhausted-looking commercial building with a computer repair shop and an irrigation company. It looked like an entrepreneur's labour of love, an ambitious menu cheaply printed on computer paper, and the chef manning the bistro waved at Kent as he went past. The hostess didn't even get up from her table while he breezed past the empty seating and a folding bamboo screen to claim a table in the back.

"Secret team hideout?" Andy asked, sitting across from him.

"Swoops and I provided Marco with some of the startup costs," he agreed. "He's good to us. God knows what the neighbours think when our cars show up."

"He's running a front for a hockey team," she mused aloud, smiling.

"Hey, did you hear Jensy and his brother got their restaurant in Sault Ste Marie up and running?"

"One better. I actually ate there a couple months ago."

Marco brought them coffee and shot the shit with Kent before they ordered, which included an update on his nephews and nieces. He laughed when Kent repeated Andy's joke, and nodded with agreement when Kent told him when Andy's flight left, then went off to cook for them.

"So?" he demanded. "How'd the interview go?"

"I had two interviews yesterday at the foundation headquarters," she said demurely. "Panel interview this morning. Then Jimmy this afternoon."

"Then you've got it," he declared. "Jimmy doesn't waste time on interviews he doesn't think will go anywhere."

"I hope so," she said pensively, curling her hands around her coffee.

"You don't..." He looked anxious, suddenly. "Did I mess things up for you in there? I didn't mean to, I just..."

"I... don't think so." She knocked on the table to keep from jinxing herself. "It's... just nice that people have good things to say. I was such... such a mentally ill hot mess, that year."

"We're the Aces," Kent joked. "That's our specialty." They shared a smile.

"Speaking of," she said. "How're you?"

He shrugged. "Whatever, it's been rough. But yes, I'm seeing a psychologist, and I'm finally on a med mix that works. Just... fuck figuring out doses during regular season. Before they put me on this new stuff, whatsit, Zyban? It was like skating through slush. I just hope I'm more sorted out next year." He shrugged the subject off with obvious discomfort. "Why're you even here, though? I thought you were interviewing with the NWHL in New York."

"I did," she agreed. "And that's still an option. But I attended this lunch talk by Georgia Martin--do you know her?"

"By reputation," he said guardedly.

"Anyway, she had a lot of interesting stuff to say about working in sports, business suit jobs and athletic suit jobs, about using the boys' leagues, and when the Aces called me up I thought maybe I'd give it another try."

"Cool," he said, and stirred his coffee. He looked away moodily, then said, "You heard she signed Zimms last week?"

"I heard," Andy agreed.

Kent looked down at his coffee, drank it. Marco came by with their food and his good wishes. Andy tucked in and Kent finally said, "If I hadn't--if I didn't fuck everything up last winter. Do you think there's a chance he might have signed with us?"

Andy frowned carefully as she cut into her crepe. "I think," she said slowly, "that losing your everloving shit at him probably put a kink in the process of you two ever getting along ever again. But... if he was ever interested in playing here, he didn't show a sign of it, and he was seriously talking to at least three different teams before you showed up at his school." She sighed and looked up at Kent's troubled face. "And honestly? If he ever intended on acting like he gave a shit about you? I think he would have started a _long_ time ago. I don't know why he isn't. I just don't think you're ever gonna get what you want out of him."

"That's what I thought you'd say," he grumbled, chin perched on his fist.

She kicked him under the table. "Eat your food."

Her phone rang before their plates were cleared away. "Andrea! Jim Murray here. Hoped I'd catch you while you were still in the city."

"Hey, Jim," Andy said, trying to sound casual instead of strangled. "Yeah, you did."

"Calling to say, loved meeting you, everybody else loved you. We want you."

After a moment to process that, Andy said, "Great!"

"Great, great. Any chance you could stick around for another day, come by tomorrow and sign some stuff? And the Li'l Aces are having a barbecue in the afternoon, maybe you could come by and meet them if you're gonna be coaching them next season. Sound good?"

Andy shielded her eyes from Kent, who was practically climbing the walls trying to overhear. "Yeah, I think I could do that."

"Good. I'll transfer you over to Lucy to see about rebooking your flight."

Andy grabbed her wits firmly in hand and said, "Look forward to working with you, sir."

Kent exited his chair with an explosive silent celly, and since she was still on the phone, went over to Marco to dance in place and share the good news. She had to summon him back with a sharp whistle when she and Lucy were done talking flight arrangements.

"Do I need a hotel room tonight?" she asked. He answered with a look as intense as it was impenetrable; after a minute she gave up trying to interpret it and pointed at her phone. "Lucy wants to know if she should book one."

"No, you're good," he assured her.

She rolled her eyes at him, and finished up her call.  

"So," he said, leaning against the wall. He'd taken their plates away himself.  "Would you like to, you know, go out? As a date?"

She smiled at him.  "I'd love nothing more," she said.

*

 **Let's Go Huskies** @scarlattina14 · Sep 21 2016  
Hey @ESPNKen let's get this straight: I am the Flemish Giant of puck bunnies.

 **still kent parson** @kvp90 · 5m  
@JLZimmermann Nah, that'd be boring. I'm planning on buying her a hockey team for our silver anniversary instead. 

**Author's Note:**

> OH MY GOD SO MUCH TO SAY. Can I say it all?
> 
> Thanks to my original recipient, who defaulted and ironically freed me to abandon the other fic I was working on (or not working on, since it wasn't working out) and launch into this madness at the last minute. Thanks to Goldstandard, who stepped in to pinch-hit. Um... hope you liked it! (Who doesn't want 15k of fandom woobie/somebody else's OFC?) 
> 
> HUGE thanks to Audiaphlios, who inspired this and helped me write the tweets, and Gutsybitsy, Hellboner, and Cadenzamuse, who helped Andy's social media voice take shape. Thanks also to my cheering crew: Stultiloquentia, Cesy, Commodorified, Go-topshelf-on-chowder, Zombizombi, Teapotsahoy, Fatlardo, Asideofladies, Bad_jokes_420, and everyone at loveandwar for helping me along. (I'm sure I'm forgetting people--I got here with the love and support of SO MANY, it's hard to remember them all). Thanks also to ninnystomb, whoever you are, for getting me thinking about Kent's Twitter screennames.
> 
> As a note: As many details about Minnesota girls' hockey as possible are fictionalized, and at no point am I trying to say anything about real individuals in this work. Even the dig about Crosby, which I include more as historical data than objective fact.


End file.
